The Bet
by Alida of the Emerald Green Hair
Summary: Ron makes a bet with Hermione...which involves the words "Malfoy" and "seduce". Is Granger going to fail? Well... Rated for very mild swearing.


~Well, I thought I'd write a Hr/D fic. Bah. I blame it on the education system. And this is coming from the girl who used to be the biggest Hr/H fan ever. WHY HAVE I CROSSED OVER TO THE DARK SIDE!!!!?  
  
On a similar note, Hermione may be a tad OOC, but it serves my purposes...  
  
Disclaimer: Don't own 'em. If I did, Ron would be dead and Sirius would be living. So there. That also brings me to the point that I am NOT, I repeat, NOT going to listen to reviews that argue Hr/R. I'm just not going to listen, OK, so don't even try. I know I sound evil, but I just can't accept Hr/R. Doesn't work for me. Sorry if you now think I'm a big egotistical jerk... :-(  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~...... THE BET: Chapter I-- You WHAT?!  
  
Hermione POV:  
  
One foot, two feet, quarry nearly---  
  
Damn.  
  
"In a hurry, Granger?"  
  
God would I ever like to know a charm that could take that look off his little ferrety face.  
  
"To get away from--I mean, no, Malfoy," and, to my inner horror, I attempted a nervous blush. Ron will die! I thought. This stupid bet was getting out of hand. Me, blushing in the presence of Draco Malfoy. My conscience doth cringe.  
  
Malfoy, on the other hand, seemed unfazed. I rather think he and Gilderoy Lockheart think that they can depend on 'the smile' to get them through life (All, right, I'll admit that Lockheart did have one talent, which does not apply to Malfoy, and was also quite handsome, which, needless to say again, does not apply to ferret-face).  
  
"Really, Granger. Your actions speak otherwise," where he raised a fair eyebrow, which promptly disappeared under his silvery bangs. Which made him look rather funny, which caused me to laugh hysterically.  
  
"What do you find so amusing, mudblood?" the tone of this conversation was rapidly changing from polite to nasty. His eyebrow also made a miraculous appearance apparently out of nowhere (or, more like, the nowhere in his well-groomed, pureblooded head), causing my laughter to increase, not deteriorate.  
  
"What the bloody hell is wrong with you!?" Eesh. Transition complete.  
  
"N-nothing, M-mal-mal-f-foy--" the tail end of my sentence was half-garbled in my seemingly ceaseless hilarity.  
  
Lucky (or not, as this bet was nearly lost as it was, and I would not be losing this bet to Ronald Weasley, of all people) for me, Malfoy (and his performing eyebrows) left me to my spasmodic shaking and giggling and joined a small crowd of Slytherin girls, who accosted him violently, all of hanging off him--in fact, one of them was. I believe it was Blaise Zabini. I almost shuddered. Not a nice girl, even for Malfoy.  
  
Crap. I think this bet is getting to my brain. Why in the world would I suddenly think of Malfoy's well-being? Only when I had gone officially insane. The normal train of thought of the sane Hermione in this situation was "Blaise Zabini can kill him if she feels like it! It's like having her do my dirty work for me!" which would have been considerably comforting.  
  
My mental disgression could not be ignored, however, making me viably insane. And what a feeling that was! I fairly sailed to the Gryffindor Common Room, to meet a dumbfounded Harry and a freckly, eager Ron.  
  
Upon my arrival, the latter blurted in the straightforward, rather brainless fashion that he always applied to any oral statements he made, "So! How'd it go, then? Have you managed to tame the beast?"  
  
I sat heavily in the certified 'Hermione chair' and crossed my arms.  
  
"I tried. To tell the truth, Weasley, this scam of yours proves more difficult than it looks."  
  
And, in that same Ron-way, he replied in genuine surprise "Really? Zabini makes it look pretty easy. It's not exactly a big secret that she and Malfoy visit the Astronomy Tower more often than not," Surprisingly intelligent-souding for Ron, I suppose, but I was disinclined at the moment to agree with him.  
  
"Look, Weasley, this had nothing to do with--" I had another mental cringe at the thought "--seducing him!"  
  
"Of course you're trying to seduce him! How else are you supposed to achieve the requirements of our little agreement?"  
  
Harry, who had not spoken, but followed Ron and I's exchange amusedly, finally put his two cents in, which was a simple "That is a disturbing thought, you know, Ron. And I bet Hermione can do it without seducing anyone."  
  
Although I was a bit wary of his use of the word 'bet', I had to give it to Harry. In this situation, like multiple others, he was a lifesaver, literally and not.  
  
"Yeah, Ron, bugger off!" I exclaimed.  
  
I could've sworn he muttered something resembling "My line."  
  
I decided it was best to go to bed.  
  
Of course, when I reached the girl's dormitory, hell itself was waiting for me.  
  
"Ohhh. Parvati! But he's a Slytherin!"  
  
"But he's sooooo hot!"  
  
"Who's so hot?" I asked the crowd of girls piled on Parvati's bed, which, strangely enough, included Padma as well. Must be something important then, I thought. Important for them, that is--as in, 'it is absolutely necessary to our health and well-being to discuss boys every living waking second of our gossipy little lives'.  
  
The words that came out of Parvati's mouth nearly made me turn around and leave.  
  
"Draco Malfoy, of course!" What did happen was that my knees gave and I sat down abruptly on the crimson Gryffindor carpet.  
  
"Oh, Granger! You have got it bad!" Lavender exclaimed, giggling like a madwoman. Parvati looked smug.  
  
"See, Lav, told you he's hot. Even Granger thinks so!"  
  
I must have been a fully attractive shade of puce at that point.  
  
"I--" I sputtered, "D-do. N-n-not. Th-th-th-think. Malfoy! Is. H-h-h--"  
  
"Hot?" Padma added helpfully.  
  
"See," tittered Lavender, "She's stuttering. She must like him." Oh sage Lavender, huh? I suppose she knows everything. Unfortunately, my tongue wasn't in working order at the moment (or should I say larynx?), so I didn't actually say it out loud. Instead, I buried my head in my hands and fairly shouted the only thing I seemed to be capable of uttering.  
  
"Begone! I am not hearing this nonsense!" which probably made all the people within a reasonable radius question my sanity.  
  
Padma, Parvati, and Lavender certainly did. They shut up quite nicely, and Padma left thereafter, so I could peacefully dress for bed and actually proceed to sleep. Ah, sleep. That felt nice after my rather trying afternoon.  
  
Morning dawned bright and cheerful, but I was anything but buoyant with happiness. I hardly bothered to brush my hair, but fortunately all the tangles were underneath and not visible.  
  
Of course, the first thing Ron said to me was, "Bloody 'ell, 'Mione, how're you supposed to get Malfoy with hair like that?" OK, so perhaps not so unnoticeable.  
  
I peered at him through half-closed eyes.  
  
"Shuddup, Ickle-Ronykins."  
  
The 'Ronykins' in question made a sign against evil and said darkly "Low blow, Hermione, low blow."  
  
Harry, poor Harry, slightly slow on the uptake and looking near bad as me, managing to sound concerned through a huge yawn, said to me "Is anything wrong, Hermione?" and in a moment of some sort of mind-reading technique that he seems to posses, continued "You look rather as though hell spat you back out."  
  
I yawned too. It's true, you know. Smiles and yawns are contagious. That is, as long as the smile is meant well. Anyway, I gave him a cryptic "Too true, Harry, too true," and marched out of the portrait hole with more books than I could carry and hair sticking about all over the place.  
  
To Be Continued.... WHEN I BLOODY FEEL LIKE IT! HAHAHAHA! No really, that'll probably be soon. *gulp* I hope... R&R, people! Pretty, pretty please? Sorry if I have any big glaring mistakes that I missed. I'm a new FF author and have no beta-reader. If anyone wants to do that for me, I'll love them forever! 


End file.
